The long-awaited Russian scifi film Inhabited Island will screen in Berlin this week. This $40 million dollar epic is one of the most expensive films to come out of the Motherland. It’s based on the 1971 Soviet novel called Prisoners of Power, written by the Strugatsky brothers, and follows amateur astronaut Maxim Kammerer after he lands on a planet based satirically on the U.S.S.R. The planet is peppered with mind-control towers that the government has disguised as a missile defense system. The newcomer destroys this network, but might have doomed its people and himself in the process. You can read an online version of the out of print (in English, anyhow) novel here. [Variety]
